hear them thinking. But they would like this.
‘Per valli,’ Aurora called.
‘Per boschi,’ Clover answered, and they were off.
The song went over valleys and forests, searching for the beloved, Clover singing the darker second line and searching in her heart for where Victor might be, going through his calendar in her mind’s eye. September 30, Cincinnati to St. Louis.
‘Dimando di lei
I call for him
ogn’ aura tacendo
out of the silent air
ogn’ aura piangendo
out of the weeping air
sen passa da me?
whither has he gone?’
She sang for Victor. For whom did Aurora sing? Not Mayhew, watching in his box. For Gentry; or perhaps for Jimmy Battle, who was far, far away, under the aegis of Eleanor Masefield. Maybe she sang for Papa, and Harry. Or only for the idea of gone.
‘Sweet echo replyeth, he is far, far away …’
What Vicissitudes
Next morning, before it was light, Flora woke from a feverish vision and lay still, piecing together the dream: the empty house, bees clustering at the eyes of the dead woman, a policeman coming up the step: it seemed she was being lied to.
She moved her head, away from the dawn bleaching the window.
About Arthur, as always. But this was the Arlington. There was no one lying on the front walk, eyes staring at the ground. Arthur was a skeleton now, in his cold earth in Paddockwood, and Harry beside him … The police had wanted in the front door but she wouldn’t let them enter in the afternoon, so they came back in the evening and there was a little blood by the back door, and the bees.
No, that was from the dream, not from life. Bees meant a secret and death. The police: a secret, and possibly death. Blood, oddly, could be a journey.
She shook her head to dispel the fog, and wished Mayhew had not ordered the third bottle of wine at supper. A kind and generous host, no matter what vicissitudes. She fell asleep again.
Cheats and Whores
Later, the rasping apartment bell twisted and twisted. After a minute there was a rapping knock, then more twisting. It was ten, but only Clover was properly up—Bella was still in her nightgown, stirring scrambled eggs. At first Clover thought they should ignore what must be a peddler or the brush-man—unless it could be Aurora, needing milk for morning tea? Clover put her eye to the peephole and then stood back on her heels. After an instant she tiptoed backwards down the hall to the kitchen.
‘Sybil and Julius!’ she told Bella, who popped her eyes wide open and glanced round the kitchen at the truly dreadful mess they’d let build up since the maid had last been. Clover dodged into the parlour, where Mama lay tangled in blankets on the Murphy bed.
‘Mama!’ she whispered. ‘It is Sybil at the door. And Julius!’
Mama opened one eye, then the other. Clover could see her trying to focus.
Then Mama jumped out of bed, flung the bedclothes towards the centre, shoved the Murphy bed back up into its niche and dashed for the bathroom, snatching her wrapper and a tangled assortment of sewing notions from the chair as she ran. ‘Wait, just wait!’ she whispered, and whisked the door shut, opening it again to release the sash of her wrapper. Her wild eye showed through the crack, and she nodded.
Clover opened the apartment door. ‘Why, hello!’ she said. ‘Dear ma’am, dear sir—how pleasant to see you after this long while!’
‘Yes, you’d think so! Sixteen months, as I count,’ Sybil said, biting the words out. Her face was pinched and strange, not at all her eager, unsquashable self. She drew back her upper lip to display tight-clenched teeth. Julius looked at the ceiling.
Bella came from the kitchen, where she had been bundling dirty dishes quietly into the oven. She had tied a bib apron over her nightgown, and her feet were crammed into Clover’s other shoes. ‘Julius!’ she cried, giving him a warm embrace; she turned to Sybil, but stopped in time.
‘We are here to see Flora, if you please,’ Sybil said, frost sharp in her voice and face.
The girls fell back and Clover showed their guests into the parlour. There they all stood awkwardly. The Murphy bed’s rise had left the room disordered. Clover flicked the carpet into place and adjusted the armchair and the small table by the window. She opened the drapes to let in pale autumn sun.
Nobody spoke; there was only the wheeze of Julius breathing.
Then Mama was at the door, her hair tidied, girdle snug